The year is 1995. Goldilocks is 30. Not old enough to identify with the self-righteous Clinton baby boomers, not young enough to empathize with the angst-ridden, grungy Gen Xers, she's still having trouble getting comfort­able in today's world. Especially at car-buying time. Thanks in part to her femi­nist forebears, her career ship is coming in—so it's time to trade that used Celica for the style and panache of a new coupe, but nothing seems to fit.

The Integra/Probe/Talon pocket rock­ets are great fun, but they're too small for taking friends on road trips. The dread­nought-class T-Bird and Cougar are long on room, but they suck gas and they aren't very nimble. And while the Camry, Accord, and Monte Carlo two-doors offer decent back seats and respectable han­dling, let's face it—they are two-door versions of ordinary family sedans, which leaves them a little short on flair.

Chrysler hopes to elicit a sigh of "just right" when someone like Goldi slides behind the wheel of the new Sebring. She and her three best friends will find about as much space for their heads and legs as in a Monte Carlo, but the Sebring is 360 pounds lighter on its feet and 13 inches easier to parallel-park. She gets the nim­ble sure-footedness of a control-arm and multilink suspension like that found on a Honda Accord coupe, here wrapped in a much more distinctive-looking package costing $2000 less. But if she has her heart set on pocket-rocket acceleration, she will be disappointed.

On paper, this new coupe is a two-door Mitsubishi Galant. The two cars share a 103.7-inch wheelbase and suspension hardware, and their length, height, and track widths fall within half an inch of one another. Chrysler provides the Sebring's 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine and both its manual and automatic transaxles. The optional 2.5-liter V-6 comes from Mitsubishi (although its intake, exhaust, and accessory-drive systems are Chrysler-designed). The parts tally adds up to 70-percent domestic content for the Sebring and its Dodge Avenger sibling, which are built alongside the Galant and the Eclipse/Talon twins in Normal, Illinois.

By using common parts and piggy­backing the engine and transmission designs onto the high-volume Neon and Cirrus/Stratus programs, Chrysler kept development costs for the Sebring and Avenger very low. This freed up some money for the stylists, who spent it wisely.

Parked side by side, the Sebring and the Galant look as much alike as the Cleavers—Beaver and Eldridge. Even the Sebring and the Avenger bear only a Wally and Beave resemblance. While the Avenger borrows its bottom-breathing fas­cia and other sporting cues from the Viper and the Stealth, the Sebring looks every inch a Chrysler, with Cir­rus touches found in the body cladding and that prominent jutting nose. Its grille and crossbars will remind auto-history nuts of the once great Chrysler 300. (In fact, the Sebring carried the 300 moniker throughout the design process, until market research revealed that target buyers didn't remember the glory days of the marque once hailed as "America's most powerful car.")

Having tested a V-6 automatic Avenger (December 1994), we selected the four-cylinder with manual five-speed for our Sebring test. As it turns out, the power-trains better fit the individual character of these two cars the other way around. The six provides smooth, leisurely perfor­mance that suits Chrysler's upscale image. Avengers (like John Steed and the lithe Emma Peel) are better served by the plucky four and its short-throw five-speed.

The DOHC 2.0-liter four whisked our car to 60 mph in 8.2 seconds (almost a sec­ond quicker than the V-6 automatic Dodge) and through the quarter-mile in 16.4 seconds at 87 mph. That positions the Sebring between the Integra GS-R pocket rocket and the dullsville Camry four-cylin­der, but it doesn't exactly peg our "just right" meter.

Neither of the Sebring's available engines can match a Honda for noise-and-vibration control, but the Neon' s rowdy four-cylinder engine is well gagged before it goes into the Sebring. Our loudmeter ranked it 4 dBA quieter here than in the Neon, both at idle and under wide-open throttle. Improved sound deadening only accounts for part of the difference. In Dia­mond-Star applications, the Neon motor gets a different cylinder head that routes the exhaust out the front side of the engine and places the quieter intake manifold fac­ing the firewall. So oriented and muffled, the engine sounds quite good at lower revs. But an alternator whine intrudes around 4000 rpm, and the steering wheel buzzes a bit from 5000 to 5500 rpm.

The Chrysler-designed shifter and gearbox feel crisper and more accurate than the Mitsubishi parts used in the Galant, and the rest of the controls are sen­sibly laid out and functionally intuitive. In a quick dash across the Angeles Forest Highway near Los Angeles, our Sebring understeered determinedly. Even lifting off the throttle midway through a damp and sandy corner produced only a degree or two of rotation. The Sebring is not quite as much fun to toss around as a Probe or Talon, which can be induced to slide around a little bit, but it is much more entertaining than the large-barge coupes.

Our biggest complaint with the Sebring's chassis is in the brake department. Our enthusiastic driving resulted in some serious fade and a bit of vibration from heat-induced rotor warpage (when the brakes cooled, the vibes subsided and all was well). We also feel that a 2940-pound car with standard ABS should be able to stop from 70 mph in less than 191 feet, even with drums in the rear. Rear discs and 16-inch wheels are optional on the LX, but you can only get them in a $674 package that includes the V-6 and automatic tranny.

When Goldi takes to the open road, she and her fellow trippers will enjoy the Sebring' s smooth ride and optional Infin­ity sound system, while the comfortable and supportive six-way manually adjustable seat and well-placed dead pedal hold her securely in the cockpit. In LX trim, the seats wear subtle gray cloth upholstery that looks better to these eyes than the "upmarket" cloth in LXi models, which has an odd wave pattern printed on it. Leather seats are available on the LXi (along with a sunroof) for $1266. The only offensive interior design element is the thoroughly unconvincing fake-wood console trim, which would send us off to the Dodge dealer in search of the Avenger's matte-black parts.

A $15,969 outlay buys a base four-cylinder Sebring with ABS and air conditioning standard, $984 adds the power goodies and cruise control, and our $707 CD player brings the tally to a still digestible $17,660. The Sebring LXi V-6 comes with everything but the CD, plus a remote keyless-entry system, four-wheel disc brakes, and 16-inch alloy wheels for $19,564. This fall, an all-new Sebring JX convertible will arrive on the scene with similar styling but riding on its own Chrysler JA—derived chassis.

Our parting impressions? The size, shape, performance, and handling of the Sebring and Avenger slot these coupes into an open niche in the marketplace, which should appeal to buyers who can't get comfortable in the current crop of coupes. The Avenger didn't quite live up to its sports-coupe image, and so it left us a little cold. But the Sebring is cast as a stylish and affordable upscale coupe, and in such a role this new chassis performs nicely. So we leave the Sebring on a hap­pily-ever-after note, feeling that we got what we bargained for.